ES teoría de la actividad / CAT teoria de l’activitat / FR théorie de l’activité / DE Tätigkeitstheorie (oder Aktivitätstheorie)

Activity theory is the explanation that historical-cultural psychology proposes for brain development. Its roots lie in Vygotsky (1978), who regards mental functions as developing from the performance of external actions. Some of his collaborators and disciples (Leontiev 1972, Luria 1979, Gal’perin 1992, Engeström et al. 1999) have carried on with his work, extending it to various fields of knowledge. According to this theory, people perform an action to achieve a goal. A set of actions related to meeting a need constitutes an activity. This activity, performed because of a reason or motivation, gives meaning to each of the actions. The main characteristic of the activity is its situation within a historical, social, and cultural context, in which a series of symbolic mediation tools have been developed to facilitate its performance. In this framework, the concept of agency is crucial, since it links the action and the motivation. Another fundamental element is the distinction between activity, action, and operation, that is, one’s three different acting levels:

For Leontiev, activities are comprised of actions, which are systems of coordination in the service of goals, which in turn represent intermediate steps on the way to satisfying the underlying motive. In his words, “an activity is carried out habitually through the aggregate of subordinate actions intended to meet partial goals, which can be distinguished from the broader purpose” (Leontiev 1972). In their turn, actions are made up of operations, or the means by which an action is carried out under specific limitations (Cole 1999: 9).

This theory has been applied to several fields in the humanities and social sciences, among others, in works on the learning and use of languages. It is precisely the action-oriented approach proposed in the CEFR (2001 and 2018) that suggests that communicative tasks consisting of language activities should be carried out in the classroom. The 'writing a letter' activity, for instance, is carried out through a succession (or simultaneity) of actions, such as greeting the addressee, stating the purpose of the letter, narrating facts or presenting arguments, making proposals and recommendations, saying goodbye, etc. Each one of these actions, in turn, is carried out through operations such as pressing the keys to write words, selecting the most appropriate keys in each case (with their corresponding characters, diacritics, punctuation marks, spacing, etc.) These operations are usually automatized and can be conducted routinely and unconsciously. In a learning stage, a behavior may be an action, while in the following stages it may become an operation. In this example, orthography or pressing the keys may be considered learning goals pursued consciously and precisely. Once these goals have been assimilated, the action becomes a routine operation.

References

  • Cole, Michael (1999). Psicología cultural. Madrid: Morata.
  • Engeström, Yrjö; Miettinen, Reijo y Punamäki, Raija-Leena (1999). Perspectives on activity theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Gal’perin, Piotr Y. (1992). Stage-by-stage formation as a method of psychological investigation. Journal of Russian and Eastern European Psychology, 30, 60-80.
  • Leontiev, Aleksei N. (1972). "The problem of activity in psychology". En Wertsch, J. V. (Ed.), The concept of activity in Soviet psychology, White Plains: Sharpe, 1981, 37-71.
  • Luria, Alexander R. (1979), Conciencia y lenguaje, Madrid: Visor, 1984, 2ª ed.
  • Vygotsky, Lev (1978). Pensamiento y lenguaje. Barcelona: Paidós, 1995.